Related papers: Extremely large telescopes for complex stellar pop…
The article summarizes the observational evidence for the existence of massive black holes, as well as the current knowledge about their abundance, their mass and spin distributions, and their cosmic evolution within and together with their…
The ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph (ANDES) is the optical and near-infrared high-resolution echelle spectrograph envisioned for the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). We present a selection of science cases, supported…
This review summarizes the properties of the stellar population in bulges as observed in nearby or distant spiral galaxies. It gives a particular emphasis to the comparison with elliptical galaxies, when possible. The criteria of sample…
A deep understanding of the life-cycle of galaxies, particularly those of high mass, requires clarifying the mechanisms that regulate star formation (SF) and its abrupt shutdown (quenching), often capable of stopping SF rates of hundreds of…
A 30 m class optical/near-IR telescope in the Northern Hemisphere, equipped for diffraction-limited imaging and high-resolution, multi-object spectroscopy of faint stars, would enable a transformational investigation of the formation and…
The unprecedented sensitivity and spatial resolution of next generation ground-based extremely large telescopes (ELTs) will open a completely new window on the study of resolved stellar populations. In this paper we study the feasibility of…
We have now accumulated a wealth of observations of the planet-formation environment and of mature planetary systems. These data allow us to test and refine theories of gas-giant planet formation by placing constraints on the conditions and…
Can the standard cosmological model be questioned on the basis of a single observed extreme galaxy cluster? Usually, the word extreme refers directly to cluster mass, which is not a direct observable and thus subject to substantial…
A supergiants are objects in transition from the blue to the red (and vice versa) in the uppermost HRD. They are the intrinsically brightest "normal" stars at visual light with absolute visual magnitudes up to -9. They are ideal to study…
Giant planets within the habitable zones of the closest several stars can currently be imaged with ground-based telescopes. Within the next decade, the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) will begin to image the habitable zones of a greater…
Open and globular star clusters have served as benchmarks for the study of stellar evolution due to their supposed nature as simple stellar populations of the same age and metallicity. After a brief review of some of the pioneering work…
Transmission and eclipse spectroscopy have been invaluable tools for the characterisation of extrasolar planet atmospheres. While they will continue to provide many new insights and discoveries in the decade(s) to come, these methods are…
In the era of Extremely Large Telescopes, the current generation of 8-10m facilities are likely to remain competitive at far-blue visible wavelengths for the foreseeable future. High-efficiency (>20%) observations of the ground UV (300-400…
So far, high resolution techniques on the one hand provide morphological information on bright nearby objects. On the other hand, telescopes with large collecting areas allow us to detect very faint and distant objects, but not to obtain a…
The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) will gather unprecedented spectro-photometric data on galaxies out to the highest redshifts. It is therefore crucial to identify the spectro-photometric diagnostics within reach of NGST, which will…
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
The bulge is a region of the Galaxy of tremendous interest for understanding galaxy formation. However measuring photometry and kinematics in it raises several inherent issues, such as severe crowding and high extinction in the visible.…
Context. Strong lenses are a biased subset of the general population of galaxies. Aims. The goal of this work is to quantify how lens galaxies and lensed sources differ from their parent distribution, namely the strong lensing bias.…
EAGLE is a Phase A study of a multi-IFU, near-IR spectrometer for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). The design employs wide-field adaptive optics to deliver excellent image quality across a large (38.5 arcmin sq.) field. When…
Strong lensing is a powerful tool to address three major astrophysical issues: understanding the spatial distribution of mass at kpc and sub-kpc scale, where baryons and dark matter interact to shape galaxies as we see them; determining the…